Ernest Mercier
Encyclopedia
Ernest Mercier was a French
industrialist, director of the French Petroleum Company (CFP), the forerunner of the French petroleum conglomerate Total
. He was born in 1878 in Constantine
, Algeria
(then a French colony
) and died in 1955.
, left metropolitan France
and established himself in Algeria
, then a French colony
. His father, Ernest Mercier, Sr. (1840-1907), was a radical
mayor of Constantine, Algeria
, and had five children, including Ernest Mercier, Jr., his third son. After studying at the École Polytechnique
, Ernest Mercier Jr. chose a career in the French Navy
. He was posted to the port in Toulon
, where he was responsible for modernizing the site, notably the electrical network. He completed his education at the École Supérieure d’Electricité
between 1905 and 1908, during which time he married Madeleine Tassin (1881-1924), the daughter of a republican Senator
. He was later noticed by Albert Petsche, and left the public sector for private electrical enterprise.
During the First World War, conscripted into the navy, he fought in the Balkans
and the Dardanelles
. According to Kuisel (1967, p.5), he had a "fighting spirit". Injured while in command of Romanian troops on the Danube, he returned to Paris, where he served as the liaison of Louis Loucheur
(Minister of Munitions for George Clémenceau) to Generals Ferdinand Foch
and Philippe Pétain
, as well as to the American troops.
After the war, he remained as Colonel Mercier for the Anglo-American forces. When Louis Loucheur was named Minister for the Liberated Zones, Mercier accompanied him and dealt with the German factories that were dependent on the Military Control Board.
In 1923, he was appointed by Raymond Poincaré
—on the suggestion of Louis Pineau, his advisor for the petroleum business, and by Louis Loucheur
, then Minister for Industrial Reconstruction—to rebuild and restructure the petroleum sector by creating a sufficiently large company to be the premiere supplier for the nation. In effect, war and development of mechanical transport had showed both the strategic importance of this sector and France's weakness in the area. The French Petroleum Company (CFP) was founded in March 1924. A 1931 law gave 35% of its capital to the state (it was until then entirely private), although Mercier successfully averted a total takeover by the government. From its first holding, a 25% stake in the Turkish Petroleum Company, the CFP grew thanks to oil extraction near Kirkuk
, Iraq
, then in Colombia
and in Venezuela
. CFP also had interests in Romania (Steaua Roumania). Mercier extended the vertical integration
of the company by constructing petroleum transport infrastructure and refiner
ies at Gonfreville
, near Le Havre
and on the Étang de Berre
, near Martigues
.
From 1933 to 1940, he is the President of Alsthom
.
(literally the "French Resurgence"), a movement under the patronage of Marshal Ferdinand Foch
with the goal of "gathering the elite and raising up the masses" (Kuisel 1967, p.49). This movement had two main objectives: the adoption by France of a "Henry Ford
" economic model (high productivity, high salaries, and mass consumption) and the modernization of political life and institutions. Despite his ambitious economic and political ideas, he failed to convince other business leaders (too Malthusian) or politicians to join him. His technocratic, elitist vision—a product of his education at the Polytechnique and influenced by Marshal Lyautey—had some aspects that could then and still can elicit hesitation even though it has now become dominant. The lack of success of his business, his involvement in the events of February 6, 1934
, which he described as the victory of the "fighting spirit"on this point see Kuisel, 1967, pp.102-111, and the fall of the national union government of Gaston Doumergue
(November 1934) all certainly drove Mercier to dissolve the Redressement Français in 1935. He then ceased to be the spokesmanFor the differences of opinion between Mercier, Marlio and Detoeuf, see Morsel (1997, p.107) of the Polytechnique modernisers, and that role was passed on to Louis Marlio and to Auguste Detœuf, author of the magazine Nouveaux Cahiers.
Mercier continued to be active in the domain of foreign policy. Upon the death of Louis Loucheur
, in 1931, he took the reins of the French Pan-European Committee. In 1932, a committee of experts fathered under the auspices of the RF urged an alliance with England to put pressure on Germany. In 1934, he urged closer ties with the USRR in order to isolate Germany. It was through this prism, it seems, that he spoke at a lecture on Russia in 1936 at the Ecole Polytechnique
's Center of Economic Studies, in which he pursued the work of the Groupe X-Crise
. Although he still participated the 1938 Colloque Walter Lippmann
(a gathering of liberal economists), he did not seem to take any active role, and perhaps had been attracted there because the problems of liberal economics were studied from a wider perspective than just that of France.
ambassadorWilliam Bullitt
(1891-1967) who, before being stationed in Paris (1936-1940), had been the first US ambassador to the Soviet Union(1933-1936) to Paris asked Mercier to organise the distribution of aid sent by the American Red Cross
. Although the Vichy regime include many former members of the RF, such as Raphaël Alibert
(justice minister) or Hubert Lagardelle
, Ernest Mercier did not collaborate. He believed that it was partly in revenge for this that Yves Bouthillier (a former RF member who had become the Vichy finance minister) had created legislation limiting the number of administrative posts that one person could occupy (Kuisel, 1967, p.148), which forced Mercier to leave the CFP. Having remarried in 1927 (to Marguerite Dreyfus, niece of Alfred Dreyfus
), Mercier was also the object of anti-Semitic attacks. He escaped deportation only because he was hospitalised for blood poisoning on the day he was to be arrested. He then took part in the same Resistance network as Auguste Perret
, the architect, and André Siegfried
.
In November 1944, he participated in the Rye Conference of international business, which undertook "a preliminary study of the economic bases for peace." In 1946, when the electrical companies that Mercier had directed were nationalised to form Électricité de France
, his career as a business leader ended. He continued to preside over the French branch of the International Chamber of Commerce
and sat on the boards of several companies, while as an engineer he pursued research on electric turbines.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
industrialist, director of the French Petroleum Company (CFP), the forerunner of the French petroleum conglomerate Total
Total S.A.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world.Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and...
. He was born in 1878 in Constantine
Constantine, Algeria
Constantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the capital of the same-named French département until 1962. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of Rhumel river...
, Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
(then a French colony
French rule in Algeria
French Algeria lasted from 1830 to 1962, under a variety of governmental systems. From 1848 until independence, the whole Mediterranean region of Algeria was administered as an integral part of France, much like Corsica and Réunion are to this day. The vast arid interior of Algeria, like the rest...
) and died in 1955.
Early life and the First World War
Mercier's grandfather Stanislas Mercier, a Protestant republican from DoubsDoubs
Doubs is a department the Franche-Comté region of eastern France named after the Doubs River.-History:As early as the 13th century, inhabitants of the northern two-thirds of Doubs spoke the Franc-Comtois language, a dialect of Langue d'Oïl. Residents of the southern third of Doubs spoke a dialect...
, left metropolitan France
Metropolitan France
Metropolitan France is the part of France located in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France or as the French mainland and the island of Corsica...
and established himself in Algeria
Algeria
Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria , also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.In terms of land area, it is the largest country in Africa and the Arab...
, then a French colony
French colonial empires
The French colonial empire was the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. The French colonial empire...
. His father, Ernest Mercier, Sr. (1840-1907), was a radical
Radicalism (historical)
The term Radical was used during the late 18th century for proponents of the Radical Movement. It later became a general pejorative term for those favoring or seeking political reforms which include dramatic changes to the social order...
mayor of Constantine, Algeria
Constantine, Algeria
Constantine is the capital of Constantine Province in north-eastern Algeria. It was the capital of the same-named French département until 1962. Slightly inland, it is about 80 kilometres from the Mediterranean coast, on the banks of Rhumel river...
, and had five children, including Ernest Mercier, Jr., his third son. After studying at the École Polytechnique
École Polytechnique
The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...
, Ernest Mercier Jr. chose a career in the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
. He was posted to the port in Toulon
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
, where he was responsible for modernizing the site, notably the electrical network. He completed his education at the École Supérieure d’Electricité
Supélec
École Supérieure d'Électricité, commonly known as Supélec, is a French Graduate School of Engineering delivering the equivalent of a Master's Degree as well as Ph.D opportunities. It is one of the most prestigious and selective Grandes Ecoles in France, and a reference in the field of electric...
between 1905 and 1908, during which time he married Madeleine Tassin (1881-1924), the daughter of a republican Senator
French Senate
The Senate is the upper house of the Parliament of France, presided over by a president.The Senate enjoys less prominence than the lower house, the directly elected National Assembly; debates in the Senate tend to be less tense and generally enjoy less media coverage.-History:France's first...
. He was later noticed by Albert Petsche, and left the public sector for private electrical enterprise.
During the First World War, conscripted into the navy, he fought in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
and the Dardanelles
Dardanelles
The Dardanelles , formerly known as the Hellespont, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with its counterpart the Bosphorus. It is located at approximately...
. According to Kuisel (1967, p.5), he had a "fighting spirit". Injured while in command of Romanian troops on the Danube, he returned to Paris, where he served as the liaison of Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur was a French politician in the Third Republic, at first a member of the conservative Republican Federation, then of the Democratic Republican Alliance and of the Independent Radicals.-Life:Coming from a background in the arms industry, Loucheur became Minister of Munitions in...
(Minister of Munitions for George Clémenceau) to Generals Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch , GCB, OM, DSO was a French soldier, war hero, military theorist, and writer credited with possessing "the most original and subtle mind in the French army" in the early 20th century. He served as general in the French army during World War I and was made Marshal of France in its...
and Philippe Pétain
Philippe Pétain
Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...
, as well as to the American troops.
After the war, he remained as Colonel Mercier for the Anglo-American forces. When Louis Loucheur was named Minister for the Liberated Zones, Mercier accompanied him and dealt with the German factories that were dependent on the Military Control Board.
Career in the electrical and petroleum industries
Ernest Mercier was most active in two sectors, electricity and petroleum which were at the time among the newest, and would soon boost the French economy of the 1920s. In 1919, he played a key role in founding the Electrical Union which encompassed various small companies around Paris. In the inter-war period, he was an important player in the electrical power industry of France, via the Messine Group, constructing thermal and hydroelectric power plants.In 1923, he was appointed by Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré
Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...
—on the suggestion of Louis Pineau, his advisor for the petroleum business, and by Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur was a French politician in the Third Republic, at first a member of the conservative Republican Federation, then of the Democratic Republican Alliance and of the Independent Radicals.-Life:Coming from a background in the arms industry, Loucheur became Minister of Munitions in...
, then Minister for Industrial Reconstruction—to rebuild and restructure the petroleum sector by creating a sufficiently large company to be the premiere supplier for the nation. In effect, war and development of mechanical transport had showed both the strategic importance of this sector and France's weakness in the area. The French Petroleum Company (CFP) was founded in March 1924. A 1931 law gave 35% of its capital to the state (it was until then entirely private), although Mercier successfully averted a total takeover by the government. From its first holding, a 25% stake in the Turkish Petroleum Company, the CFP grew thanks to oil extraction near Kirkuk
Kirkuk
Kirkuk is a city in Iraq and the capital of Kirkuk Governorate.It is located in the Iraqi governorate of Kirkuk, north of the capital, Baghdad...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, then in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
and in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
. CFP also had interests in Romania (Steaua Roumania). Mercier extended the vertical integration
Vertical integration
In microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to...
of the company by constructing petroleum transport infrastructure and refiner
Refinery
A refinery is a production facility composed of a group of chemical engineering unit processes and unit operations refining certain materials or converting raw material into products of value.-Types of refineries:Different types of refineries are as follows:...
ies at Gonfreville
Gonfreville
Gonfreville is a commune in the Manche department in north-western France....
, near Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
and on the Étang de Berre
Étang de Berre
The Étang de Berre is a body of water adjacent to the Mediterranean, about 25km north-west of Marseille.-Geography:Created by the rise in water levels at the end of the last ice age, this small inland sea is composed of...
, near Martigues
Martigues
Martigues is a commune northwest of Marseille. It is part of the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the eastern end of the Canal de Caronte....
.
From 1933 to 1940, he is the President of Alsthom
Alstom
Alstom is a large multinational conglomerate which holds interests in the power generation and transport markets. According to the company website, in the years 2010-2011 Alstom had annual sales of over €20.9 billion, and employed more than 85,000 people in 70 countries. Alstom's headquarters are...
.
Activism and political engagement
In December 1925, Mercier founded the Redressement FrançaisRedressement Français
The Redressement Français was a French anti-parliamentarian movement founded in 1926 by electricity magnate Ernest Mercier. It advocated technocratic corporatism - a "government of authority" - instead of a government of politicians....
(literally the "French Resurgence"), a movement under the patronage of Marshal Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch
Ferdinand Foch , GCB, OM, DSO was a French soldier, war hero, military theorist, and writer credited with possessing "the most original and subtle mind in the French army" in the early 20th century. He served as general in the French army during World War I and was made Marshal of France in its...
with the goal of "gathering the elite and raising up the masses" (Kuisel 1967, p.49). This movement had two main objectives: the adoption by France of a "Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Henry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
" economic model (high productivity, high salaries, and mass consumption) and the modernization of political life and institutions. Despite his ambitious economic and political ideas, he failed to convince other business leaders (too Malthusian) or politicians to join him. His technocratic, elitist vision—a product of his education at the Polytechnique and influenced by Marshal Lyautey—had some aspects that could then and still can elicit hesitation even though it has now become dominant. The lack of success of his business, his involvement in the events of February 6, 1934
6 February 1934 crisis
The 6 February 1934 crisis refers to an anti-parliamentarist street demonstration in Paris organized by far-right leagues that culminated in a riot on the Place de la Concorde, near the seat of the French National Assembly...
, which he described as the victory of the "fighting spirit"on this point see Kuisel, 1967, pp.102-111, and the fall of the national union government of Gaston Doumergue
Gaston Doumergue
Pierre-Paul-Henri-Gaston Doumergue was a French politician of the Third Republic.Doumergue came from a Protestant family. Beginning as a Radical, he turned more towards the political right in his old age. He served as Prime Minister from 9 December 1913 to 2 June 1914...
(November 1934) all certainly drove Mercier to dissolve the Redressement Français in 1935. He then ceased to be the spokesmanFor the differences of opinion between Mercier, Marlio and Detoeuf, see Morsel (1997, p.107) of the Polytechnique modernisers, and that role was passed on to Louis Marlio and to Auguste Detœuf, author of the magazine Nouveaux Cahiers.
Mercier continued to be active in the domain of foreign policy. Upon the death of Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur
Louis Loucheur was a French politician in the Third Republic, at first a member of the conservative Republican Federation, then of the Democratic Republican Alliance and of the Independent Radicals.-Life:Coming from a background in the arms industry, Loucheur became Minister of Munitions in...
, in 1931, he took the reins of the French Pan-European Committee. In 1932, a committee of experts fathered under the auspices of the RF urged an alliance with England to put pressure on Germany. In 1934, he urged closer ties with the USRR in order to isolate Germany. It was through this prism, it seems, that he spoke at a lecture on Russia in 1936 at the Ecole Polytechnique
École Polytechnique
The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...
's Center of Economic Studies, in which he pursued the work of the Groupe X-Crise
Groupe X-Crise
The Groupe X-Crise was a French technocratic movement created in 1931 as an aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street stock market crash and the Great Depression. Formed by former students of the École Polytechnique , it advocated planisme, or economic planification, as opposed to the then dominant...
. Although he still participated the 1938 Colloque Walter Lippmann
Colloque Walter Lippmann
The Colloque Walter Lippmann was a meeting of intellectuals organized in Paris in August 1938 by French philosopher Louis Rougier. After the 1920s and 1930s saw a decline in the interest for classical liberalism the aim was to construct a new Liberalism as a rejection of collectivism, socialism and...
(a gathering of liberal economists), he did not seem to take any active role, and perhaps had been attracted there because the problems of liberal economics were studied from a wider perspective than just that of France.
The Second World War and beyond
In May 1940, the AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
ambassadorWilliam Bullitt
William Bullitt
William Christian Bullitt, Jr. was an American diplomat, journalist, and novelist. Although in his youth he was considered something of a radical, he later became an outspoken anticommunist.-Early years:...
(1891-1967) who, before being stationed in Paris (1936-1940), had been the first US ambassador to the Soviet Union(1933-1936) to Paris asked Mercier to organise the distribution of aid sent by the American Red Cross
American Red Cross
The American Red Cross , also known as the American National Red Cross, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside the United States. It is the designated U.S...
. Although the Vichy regime include many former members of the RF, such as Raphaël Alibert
Raphaël Alibert
Raphaël Alibert was a French politician.-Politics:Raphael Alibert was an ardent Roman Catholic convert and someone with strong royalist ideas. One of the most intense followers of Charles Maurras, Alibert was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the Action Française party...
(justice minister) or Hubert Lagardelle
Hubert Lagardelle
Hubert Lagardelle was a French syndicalist thinker, influenced by Proudhon and Georges Sorel. He gradually moved to the right and served as Minister of Labour in the Vichy regime under Pierre Laval from 1942 to 1943....
, Ernest Mercier did not collaborate. He believed that it was partly in revenge for this that Yves Bouthillier (a former RF member who had become the Vichy finance minister) had created legislation limiting the number of administrative posts that one person could occupy (Kuisel, 1967, p.148), which forced Mercier to leave the CFP. Having remarried in 1927 (to Marguerite Dreyfus, niece of Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
), Mercier was also the object of anti-Semitic attacks. He escaped deportation only because he was hospitalised for blood poisoning on the day he was to be arrested. He then took part in the same Resistance network as Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret
Auguste Perret was a French architect and a world leader and specialist in reinforced concrete construction. In 2005 his post-WWII reconstruction of Le Havre was declared by UNESCO one of the World Heritage Sites....
, the architect, and André Siegfried
André Siegfried
André Siegfried was a French academic, geographer and political writer best known for his commentaries on American, Canadian, and British politics....
.
In November 1944, he participated in the Rye Conference of international business, which undertook "a preliminary study of the economic bases for peace." In 1946, when the electrical companies that Mercier had directed were nationalised to form Électricité de France
Électricité de France
Électricité de France S.A. is the second largest French utility company. Headquartered in Paris, France, with €65.2 billion in revenues in 2010, EDF operates a diverse portfolio of 120,000+ megawatts of generation capacity in Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.EDF is one of...
, his career as a business leader ended. He continued to preside over the French branch of the International Chamber of Commerce
International Chamber of Commerce
The International Chamber of Commerce is the largest, most representative business organization in the world. Its hundreds of thousands of member companies in over 130 countries have interests spanning every sector of private enterprise....
and sat on the boards of several companies, while as an engineer he pursued research on electric turbines.